Although Hollywood movie studios have little choice in which
format they release their high-definition content, companies such as Disney and
Fox chose Blu-ray Disc for its added copy protection features.

Like any other software protection scheme, however, it was
only a matter of time before BD+ would be circumvented. In the latest version of
SlySoft AnyDVD HD, released on Wednesday, the top new feature notes that the 6.4.0.0
software can now remove the BD protection from Blu-ray Discs. The release note also
mentions that the removal of BD+ increases compatibility with titles released
by Twentieth Century Fox.

Effectively an embedded virtual machine inside player
hardware, BD+ allows content providers to include executables on Blu-ray Discs
to perform specific, content protecting functions. For example, the BD+ virtual
machine could run diagnostics on the host environment to see if the disc player
has been modified, or to verify that the keys have not been changed.

As part of the BD+ scheme, video may be deliberately
corrupted or modified to prevent the ripping of the data stream for piracy
purposes. The BD+ environment, once verified, will correct and descramble the
content to render it viewable.